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Conference prospectus Cognitive neuroscience may be seen as perhaps the most promising and exciting intellectual initiative of the new century. Arising from the increasingly rapid convergence of research in the cognitive sciences and the neurosciences, cognitive neuroscience views the mind's embodiment as immensely consequential, both theoretically and methodologically, for psychological, philosophical, linguistic, and even anthropological investigations. Although the research agendas, findings, and paradigms emerging from work in this new interdisciplinary area bear enormous implications for the theory and criticism of the arts, as yet only a handful of researchers and scholars in literature, music, film, esthetics, and art history have been attempting to follow and engage with developments in cognitive neuroscience. This represents a lost opportunity for scientists no less than for humanists, as critics and theorists of the arts are uniquely trained to pose questions and adduce examples that could bring more rigor and refinement, as well as cultural resonance, to the new sciences of mind. Given the provisional character of much work in the cognitive neurosciences, and continued debate over such basic issues as modularity, innateness, and connectionism, it is too early to call for a "consilience" among academic disciplines guided by a shared biological account of mind and behavior. Yet it is by no means too early to recognize that the questions being posed by cognitive neuroscience--increasingly sophisticated questions that have already produced stunning results--provide the basis for a renewed and potentially transformative dialogue among researchers and scholars on both sides of the inherited "two cultures" divide. How productive such a dialogue might become will depend on the questions that provoke it, the methodological and theoretical assumptions that guide it, and the new kinds of training and collaboration that facilitate it. The proposed conversation on "Cognitive Neuroscience and the Arts" is intended to begin addressing these issues in a relatively informal yet thoughtful and informed manner. Its goal is to eventuate, not in a set of answers, but in a set of pointed and provocative questions for further consideration and research. The conference will involve a dozen or so academics from a mix of disciplines meeting for two days at the Minary Center, Dartmouth's conference center on Squam Lake (a.k.a. Golden Pond). Each participant--about half representing the arts, half representing the cognitive neurosciences--will be asked to submit one essay or chapter-length piece (in print or forthcoming) for precirculation among the group, so that we can begin with an initial sense of one anothers' work. At the conference itself, each participant will be invited to talk briefly (10-15 minutes) about one or more of a series of questions that will be precirculated as well. These questions will not be posed as invitations to argue over broad philosophical issues but rather will address some of the methodological and pragmatic issues involved in facilitating a productive dialogue among humanists and cognitive neuroscientists. (See the list of sample questions above.) The full list of questions will be culled from suggestions proposed by all of the participants. If it is much
too soon to expect "consilience" across the human sciences,
there may already exist a sufficient area of common ground, at least among
those scholars and researchers already working on issues of cognition,
language, culture, and the arts, for a productive discussion to begin.
At least a tentative sense of agreement might be posited regarding the
following working assumptions: A naturalistic, brain-based, evolutionary
understanding of the human mind. A proviso that, although mental events
may ultimately be reducible to neuronal and other somatic activity, cognitive,
linguistic, and cultural levels of explanation will remain indispensable
for the foreseeable future. An optimistic sense that developments in cognitive
neuroscience stand to make significant contributions to the theory, analysis,
and interpretation of the arts. A non-reductive approach to literary and
other cultural artifacts as records of high-level cognitive functioning
evoking complex responses in their audiences. We hope to meet in an atmosphere
of challenge rather than contention, and in a spirit of mutual respect. |
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